Beijing Calls Outlook Hack Allegations “Groundless Slander”
Cyberspace Administration of China spokesman says GreatFire.org tried to ‘incite dissatisfaction’
China’s Internet regulator has called allegations that it hacked into Microsoft’s Outlook email service “groundless slander”.
Official Beijing news agency Xinhua quoted the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) spokesman Jiang Jun responding to the allegations made by GreatFire.org, a Chinese Internet watchdog.
Outlook suffered a man-in-the-middle attack
GreatFire.org has said that the CAC was probably responsible for the man-in-the-middle attack which compromised thousands of Outlook accounts.
The website said: “If our accusation is correct, this new attack signals that the Chinese authorities are intent on further cracking down on communication methods that they cannot readily monitor.”
But Jiang reportedly said that the allegations were attempts to “incite dissatisfaction and smear China’s cyberspace management system” by GreatFire.org.
Last week, it was revealed that the Chinese government had shut down 50 websites which had violated the country’s Internet regulations.
The websites, which included 17 public pages on the mobile messaging app Weixin, 24 other websites and nine columns on websites, were closed by the CAC, which said that the websites were closed because of violations such as pornography to ‘publishing political news without a permit’.
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